Music sight-reading is a valuable skill that eludes and frustrates many musicians. Techniques for teaching sight-reading are varied, with teachers mostly falling back on personal experience or simply hoping that, somehow, the penny will drop for the student. This study reports on a survey of the music learning and playing habits of expert and…

This study is based on the premise that emotional skills--comprised of an intrapersonal dimension and an interpersonal dimension--help to achieve personal balance, which in turn can enhance performance. Following from this premise, the improvement of music students' emotional skills might have a positive effect on their musical performance. The…

The aim of this study is to determine the social skill levels of high school students according to their participation in musical activities. Social skills are important in all stages of an individual's development, but due to physical and mental changes in high school years when adolescence is intensely experienced, the individual may have…

This study tested the effect of the motor learning paradigm of internal and external focus of attention (FOA) with middle school band students. A total of 56 second-year band students (woodwinds n = 28; valved brass n = 18; trombones n = 10) practiced isochronous, alternating pitch patterns (e.g., eighth notes C-A-C-A-C-A-C) in three conditions:…

Korean folk music has been rarely included in the Western music curriculum due to limited materials for music teachers to use. This article introduces "Ganggangsullae", a prominent Korean folk tradition (called a "folk play" by Koreans) that incorporates singing and dancing, and discusses its historical background and the…

Secondary general music is hard to define. For some, this denotes an accelerated version of elementary general music or a decelerated version of a college music appreciation course. Others view this as any nontraditional ensemble geared for middle or high school students, such as guitar, keyboard, or steel pans. Still, for others, secondary…

Given its importance in children's development and learning, researchers have rigorously studied play, and many teachers have used it as a classroom tool. Music researchers have observed that music regularly accompanies children's play because music is part of their culture, and "playing with music" is the most natural form of expression…

This article presents the result of the study on the development strategy of local culture literacy (angklung) through cross-curricular learning by integrating indoor and outdoor environment. Designed through a case study as a qualitative study, this study involves 1 teacher and 24 4th grade students at Sekolah Dasar Laboratorium Universitas…

In this study the relationships between the Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) levels and mindfulness levels of Music Teacher Candidates (MTC) were investigated. A large sample of undergraduate students (N = 524) from seven different universities from around Turkey took place in the study. The data was collected with both Kenny's MPA inventory and…

Despite music education being endorsed by researchers as an effective tool to improve the social-emotional competence of students who live in poverty, African American students, who are overrepresented among the population of students who live in poverty, often fail to take advantage of music education programs (Elpus & Abril, 2011; Hoffman…

The purpose of this study was (1) to examine the impact that small ensemble free improvisation experiences had on dispositional empathy development when compared with other forms of collective music making; and (2) to examine the relationship between co-performing musicians' empathy levels and their performance achievement in small ensembles using…

The times we live in are described as pluralistic and diverse. In the Nordic countries, societies are often described--even officially--as multicultural. People with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds are expected to coexist and respect each other. Different values are set free from hierarchical conceptual models. Many stories about the…

Piano lessons which take place in music education departments involve example works of Turkish and world composers, education music examples, piano literature and learning-teaching techniques. Within this context, Ulvi Cemal Erkin, who is a member of The Turkish Five, wrote a composition called "Duyuslar," which consists of 11 pieces and…

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of equivalence-based instruction (EBI) on the emergence of basic music reading and piano playing skills. Six female college students learned to identify three musical chord notations given their respective dictated names. Participants also learned to play chords on the piano following…

In schools, band is often seen as a class where students and teachers can be creative. But is this true? Many schools use a traditional band model, which may not allow space for creative activities. This article, inspired by the "Music Educators Journal" March 2017 special focus on teaching for musical creativity, examines and critiques…